by DCist contributor Dave Weigel

From Stern’s MySpace page.

You probably already knew this, and you might have been checking to see if this show, like Stern’s last D.C. show, featured a kissing booth. (It did not.) But: There is no middle ground on Marnie Stern. Her music either hypnotizes or it subjects the listener to an endurance test. This does not change from song to start: You make your choice at the start of her show. On Wednesday night Stern split the difference, and gave a packed house (in a small venue) a brief, 10-song set that set the fanboys groaning and spared the doubters any more pain.

The thing is that even if you’ve never heard Stern, you have heard her sound. Every one of her songs is carried by the extremely fast, extremely skilled, two-handed guitar tapping that Stern performs with her eyes locked in on her fretboard. Outside of Stern’s own records, it’s a sound you most often hear in hard rock and metal. But you hear it at very specific times, at the end of guitar solos, after artists have worked their way down the fret, wagging their tongues, and possibly standing back to back with their bassists as giant skeletons are lowered onto the stage.

This is the sound of every Marnie Stern song. It either grates or it captivates. Stern is a joyful live performer, and her music sounds better live, instead of the art-rock experiment that comes out of a home speaker. But there’s only so much high-end hammering a crowd can take.